


Secret Santa 2018

by SoaringJe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bellamione discord, Discord: Bellamione Cult, F/F, Secret Santa, Secret Santa 2018, it counts, it still 2018 for some of the cult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 10:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17242340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoaringJe/pseuds/SoaringJe
Summary: prompt: Bellatrix apologizes to Hermione for hurting her.My thanks to Inflinty for the prompt, and Buggy for organizing the secret santa, and the bellamione discord for bein' amazin'.





	Secret Santa 2018

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inflinty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inflinty/gifts).



_Something was wrong,_ Hermione realized as she arrived home. It had taken her a while to get used to the feel of the wards on the property, the information that could be gleamed from the timbre and flow of their magic, but she was proficient enough to sense that not all was right. 

It wasn’t dangerous, she knew, the wards’ magic lacking the sting of alarm as she examined them closer. Much like how muggles checked their pulse with their fingers, Hermione focused her magic on her mental construct of the house. The wards’ magic pulsed, bright and clear, so the wards themselves were healthy. It was consistent too, thus ruling out damage to the house.

No, the source of this unease wasn’t as obvious as that. It was subtler, with its threads woven throughout the magic she could feel. It wasn’t the house and its wards, but...

Hermione hurried through the halls. 

The wards had a specific...Hermione supposed ‘flavor’ would suffice, as only two people’s magic fueled the wards. Both of whom were currently in residence.

Hermione found Bellatrix standing, a silent spectre in their sitting room. She released her focus from the wards. Bellatrix was still as Hermione approached.

“Bella,” Hermione bade softly. She could barely see her face through her wild mane. “What is it, love?” she asked, brushing black curls aside. Bellatrix’s eyes were closed...not peacefully, no, but screwed tight like a child stuck in a nightmare.

Hermione wrapped her arms around her. 

Bellatrix trembled.

They breathed together like that for a time. 

Moonlight streamed through from the window behind Hermione. She watched their silhouettes sway. 

And then one pulled back. 

Hermione let her, her arms falling to her sides as Bellatrix stepped back.

Black eyes ensnared her.

“It used to be,” Bellatrix began, voice hushed and soft and that slightest bit broken, “that when other people were in pain, _I_ wasn’t.” Her eyes shut, and Hermione watched black lashes glisten with tears. “Not with you.” The admission fell from her like the droplets off porcelain cheeks.

Hermione knew, had to have known really, that she was Bellatrix’s exception for a number of things, but she had never seen Bellatrix’s pain bared so plainly, confessed to so easily without bluster or bravado or cruelty. Sadness? Never plainly. Anger? Perhaps too often. Pride? Definitely too often. Passion? Incarnate. But _pain?_ What had come over her?

“You grasp your arm sometimes,” Bella said suddenly, hair once more shielding her face. “When you’re sleeping.” 

Hermione’s scars flared, those hateful letters burning as if her arm was being sliced open once more. It faded. 

Black eyes peered at her. “And you were crying, before you left.” She had seen that? “I have taken so much from you and your friends…” 

Hermione’s stomach churned, reminded that the people she and her friends had been mourning...she came home to their murderer. 

Sometimes Hermione wondered how she had ever come to this, loving _Bellatrix Black_ of all people. 

“I have caused so much misery in this world,” Bellatrix admitted as if Hermione needed a reminder, “but seeing you in pain…seeing the pain _I_ caused on _your_ face,” a pale hand rose hesitantly to brush against her cheek just the once before falling away. “I have _never_ felt so undeserving to be in this world with you, and _I’m sorry.”_

Far more often, Hermione wondered how she could have possibly _avoided_ falling in love with Bellatrix. It seemed impossible. 

“I wish I could give you the world and all I’ve taken from it,” the dark witch confessed, Hermione’s throat closing at all she felt for this woman. “But all I can give you is what I am and the person you’re helping me become.” Bellatrix’s breaths shuddered in her chest. “And the sincerest apologies you’ve dredged up from my blackened heart.” 

Hermione was helpless. Her hands shook as she stepped forward, brushing black curls away. Her hands lingered, hesitated, then moved to gently cup Bellatrix’s face. 

Pitch eyes shone with tears and moonlight. 

Hermione kissed her. She kissed her because how else was she to convey the love she felt for this woman, this brilliant, unbending witch whose strength was all-but peerless, yet fit perfectly in her arms; whose mind was one of the brightest she’d ever known, yet found her equal in Hermione; whose laughter, true, _sincere_ laughter, was unheard for decades, yet now rang out frequently alongside hers; and whose tears, something of which many did not think the proud witch capable, had cleansed the present of the past. 

Hermione nearly drowned, sometimes, in all the dark witch had done: the guilt, the anger, the _hate_ she felt for her. 

But the witch’s fire brought life back to her numbened heart. And in the eye of her tempest, Hermione could _breathe._

“I know,” Bellatrix gasped when they broke apart. “I _know_ I don’t make it easy to love me—” 

“No, you really don’t,” Hermione agreed, smiling through her tears. 

Bella’s mouth dropped open, eyes flashing. 

It was never a _dream_ with Bellatrix. 

Hermione breathed her next words into the space between them as if she could sear them into Bellatrix’s soul, just as Bellatrix’s words were indelibly imprinted on hers. “You make it _worth it.”_

It was home. 

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: Bellatrix apologizes to Hermione for hurting her.
> 
> My thanks to Inflinty for the prompt, and Buggy for organizing the secret santa, and the bellamione discord for bein' amazin'.


End file.
